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Table of Contents (TOC) Service Now Available from Harvard Libraries Site
Last summer, the University Library Council's Public Services Committee
(PSC) appointed a small task force to investigate commercially available
e-mail alert and table of contents (TOC) services. The interfaculty task
force—which included Amira Aaron (Harvard University Library Office for
Information Systems), Kim Dulin (Harvard Law School Library), Ellen
Isenstein (John F. Kennedy School of Government Library), Deborah Garson
(Gutman Library at the Harvard Graduate School of Education), and
Patricia Riley (formerly of the Medical School's Countway
Library)—researched several possible vendors and ultimately selected TDNet
as Harvard's service provider.
Now, as of March 1, the Harvard Libraries web site features the new
service, which provides e-mail alerts based on the tables of contents for
new issues of approximately 15,000 print and electronic journals purchased
or licensed by the Harvard libraries. The new TOC service, powered by
software from TDNet, may be accessed from a link under "Conducting
Research" on the Harvard Libraries site located at http://lib.harvard.edu.
Harvard users can take advantage of the new TOC service in several
important ways. Researchers can request e-mail alerts that contain complete
tables of contents for pre-specified journals as new issues are published.
Researchers can also request alerts for new article titles containing
designated keywords or author names from any journals on the site.
According to Associate Harvard College Librarian Lynda Leahy, the new
centralized service offers
significant advantages to users. "First," Leahy said, "Harvard users can
work within a single framework that searches recent issues of 15,000
journal titles—a number that will
continue to grow. Second, users can establish one or more 'profiles' with
the TOC service. Third, based on these profiles, the service will deliver
alerts on a planned basis—generally on Sunday nights.
"But the greatest convenience," Leahy noted, "is that both the e-mail
alerts and online tables of contents contain 'Find It @ Harvard' buttons.
In short, you can link directly to the full text."
In order to set up alerts for particular journal titles and/or keywords in
the titles and authors of articles, a user must set up one or more
profiles, including a user name and password. Groups of individuals that
share a common interest or area of study can share a group profile, which
will allow them to receive the same tables of contents and keyword alerts
via e-mail. Researchers can also set up lists of favorite journals online
without receiving e-mail alerts for new issues.
The new service is available to Harvard faculty, students, and staff who have valid Harvard IDs and PINs. The URN for the service is http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource:tdnetxxx. The site can be bookmarked from a link on the home page.
Questions and comments should be directed to librarians on campus, or they
can be e-mailed to libraryalerts@hulmail.harvard.edu.
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